One of poker’s top tournament directors is the Bellagio’s Jack McClelland, master of ceremonies for some of the game’s top events. Gearing up for the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, McClelland sat down with Poker News Daily to discuss the state of the poker tournament world.

Poker News Daily: Thanks for joining us. Tell us how you’re getting ready for the upcoming Five Diamond World Poker Classic.

McClelland: The Five Diamond starts the day after Thanksgiving. We’ve been doing it for nine years now, so we have it down. We close down the Fontana Lounge and fill it up with poker tables. I’m expecting around 300 players for the first tournament and somewhere between 300 and 500 for the Main Event.

PND: Talk about how the ongoing recession has affected poker at the Bellagio.

McClelland: It’s just like the rest of the world. The people that were playing $200/$400 are now playing $80/$160. The people playing $10/$20 are now playing $5/$10. No one wants to admit that they had anything bad happen, so they just play lower, which is especially tough on the Bellagio-style tournaments because ours have been geared more towards the high-end player. This is the player who is going to make a bigger buy-in and also go out and spend $100 or $200 on a nice dinner. We’ve had to reduce our buy-ins and things like that to get more foot traffic, but we’ve also had to keep the big stuff to preserve our credibility.

It’s difficult because of the economy and because of the internet law change in 2006. Now, if one of the big sites wants to send us $3 million and 200 players, we send it back and say thanks, but we can’t accept it. The internet has been driving the tournament players towards Europe, China, and the Middle East. We’re at a severe disadvantage.

PND: What noticeable effects have you seen of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA)?

McClelland: It was passed at the end of 2006. We didn’t see an immediate drop-off and, for a year or so, everything was okay. Television still picks up the big tournaments and people still want to win the big ones. What the UIGEA did was take away from the preliminary events. For example, we’re giving away a $6,000 Rolex to the winners of some of our events. You can buy in for $500, win your share of the prize money, and also take home a $6,000 Rolex. That’s very enticing. It’s a combination of the current economy and the uncertainty of the future of the economy. If people have money, they’ll be more careful with it.

PND: Talk about an average day in the life of Jack McClelland.

McClelland: We go to the office and I have a tournament every day. We have meetings with different departments and people come up with new ideas for marketing and we have to sort through everything. We do a lot of stuff internationally with our property, so we make trips and advise them on how to do things. Las Vegas is very competitive and, with the current economy, the Bellagio is at a disadvantage because we cater to the higher buy-ins and the bigger players.

PND: How did you get started directing tournaments?

McClelland: In the early 1980s, I was playing 200 to 300 small buy-in tournaments a year. I was always complaining about how the tournaments are so badly run. My wife said, “If you’re such a genius, you should run them.” It worked out because I love the competition and the challenge of how to run an event. I’ve always been willing to adapt and my rules are more flowing than set in stone.

I have a wonderful staff. I hand-picked and hand-trained all of them. They worship the quicksand I walk on. They’re just a great group and I’m very proud of them. During the Bellagio Cup this year, I caught pneumonia. I maybe did 10 minutes of work on the television show and couldn’t make it. During the event, they just took the ball and ran with it. At most places, if your guy goes down, you’re going to have some rocky spots. In our case, our staff picked up the ball, ran with it, and scored a touchdown.

PND: What do you foresee as the future of poker tournaments?

McClelland: I believe that poker tournaments will be with us as long as we have the television exposure. If we lose television, it’s just going to revert back. The main thing that’s hurting the American poker industry is the internet law. In other countries around the world, you can play online, but not here. As much as our country needs the money, to pass up billions of dollars in revenue is criminal. If they change the law, I don’t know that we’ll get back up to 10,000 entries into a $10,000 buy-in event, but we’ll get our market share back. If they don’t change it, we’re just eroding.

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